I did not drink for 28 years with my first wife. My new wife likes beer. I found Stella Artrois to be splendid and then IPA like Sweet water 420

Bought Michelob Ultra and tried a Yuengling. The latter had a better taste to me. Mexican beers are OK but I have found the European taste to be a crisper taste. Heineken Light and Becks are now very good to me. I've had one Guinness Stout and one is in the fridge. Also a locally made coffee beer.

I can't say that I'm a fan of European, Canadian or American beers, especially laggers and pilsners. They don't seem to have much body or complexity in their taste and are too fizzy. I'm strictly an English bitter, ale and stout man.

I was stationed in West Germany (yes, I know that dates me, but I never claimed to be a spring chicken) for 2+ years and I got to drink some of the finest beers on the planet. It got to the point where I'd be served "yet another pilsner" (said in boredom). We'd take the train to go to Mainz, cross the square from the bahnfof and go to The Bier Tunnel. It was underground, had great food, and "imported" beers from Munich. Understand that each region or city had their own local brews and that's pretty much all that was available locally. No way was American beer available and it wouldn't have sold except maybe to a GI stuck on base.

Many of the "European" beers available here are actually made here and bear little resemblance to the real deal available in Europe. Our first night in Germany a sgt warned us away from the local Mainzer Aktien brew. He said it was 12% alcohol or whatever it was and to go easy on it. So naturally we had to test what he said. Yup, it certainly wasn't US beer. Within a year it would be "just another Pilsner". Many of the European produced beer is an export version specifically made for the US market. They know that here in the USA we drink our beer cold, which is a huge laugh for them; or it was. Our beer is drunk cold to hide the fact that it doesn't have any flavor. In Europe it's drunk cool at best because it has flavor and people actually want to taste their beer.

I wish I could drink beer today. I love beer, but I simply can't drink more than a few ounces unless I'm dehydrated. At one time I enjoyed making my own beers, and due to my experience in Germany I decided I much preferred the top fermented ales; porter, English amber, stout, and some specialty brews that no one outside of home beer production has ever heard of. They are beers that one actually doesn't want to drink chilled much beyond cool because they actually (IMO) have great taste. Many were the afternoons that I would fill my stein with a homebrew, or 2 or 3, and contemplate the inside of the container while sitting out on the deck and enjoying whatever came out of the Forest.

The PBS show, Cooks Illustrated, had a taste test of Mexican Lagers recently. They were based on their usual nerdy approach. They found out that all 4 lagers they tested were made by large multinational corporations and contained corn which is used to sweeten the product and save money. All true German lagers are made from barley, yeast and hops only. They liked Tecate best; Corona next and Dos Equis last. Beware that their go to beer is Budweiser. So much for that test.

My late father-in-law Larry was a real man's man. He had four destroyers sunk from under him as a gunnery mate in the Pacific. Larry liked rum and beer. His wife, my mother in law, was a classic example of Rosie the Riveter at the shipyard. Larry drank whatever beer was available, specifically Jax, Schlitz, Miller, Bud, Pabst, Old Milwaukee, you get the picture. He had utter contempt for so-called connoisseurs who thought they should only drink this or that specific beverage. He had no patience for such nonsense. If there ever was a "people pleaser", you bet it was not him. In that sense, some guys drink what they like regardless of where or how it is made. Or, I might add, without hoping it was pre-approved by anybody else.

I live in Washington State. Imagine my surprise when a job took me to Montana where beers are divided into those served in taverns and those you could buy in a grocery store. When co-workers took me to a bar I tasted real beer for the first time. Schlitz was a wonder then; not the factory product it later became. Same with a lot of national beers. The big boys bought up the smaller breweries one by one as they couldn't compete. Now I believe no brand of beer is anything like the real thing was back then almost 50 years ago.

brothers wrote:My late father-in-law Larry was a real man's man. He had four destroyers sunk from under him as a gunnery mate in the Pacific. Larry liked rum and beer. His wife, my mother in law, was a classic example of Rosie the Riveter at the shipyard. Larry drank whatever beer was available, specifically Jax, Schlitz, Miller, Bud, Pabst, Old Milwaukee, you get the picture. He had utter contempt for so-called connoisseurs who thought they should only drink this or that specific beverage. He had no patience for such nonsense. If there ever was a "people pleaser", you bet it was not him. In that sense, some guys drink what they like regardless of where or how it is made. Or, I might add, without hoping it was pre-approved by anybody else.

Gary,

1) Jax was brewed in my hometown, New Orleans, and I drank plenty of it!

2) When I was 16 I would be served without being carded because I would spend the extra nickel on a Michelob!

Stella Artois, Negro Modelo and Shiner Bock. My son calls Negro Modelo liquid bread, since it is a very dark beer.

I drink the Negro Modelo when I have Mexican food (so I drink a lot of it!), the Stella most other times when we are out for dinner and I don't want wine. The Shiner is in the garage fridge - for around the house on a weekend afternoon.

Becks Dark is fourth on the list.

Gene

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
Mark Twain

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Alan Moore